


Antiques

by gladdecease



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Museums, Panic Attacks (briefly), Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1472245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With museums as a backdrop, Steve and Bucky find themselves, and each other. (Or: the Smithsonian fanwank you probably didn't want or need.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antiques

**Author's Note:**

> I just can't bear it. I'm sorry, Marvel, I know Air and Space is the coolest looking/most recognizable Smithsonian, but unless Steve was flying rockets into HYDRA bases on the regular, his exhibit doesn't belong there.
> 
> Therefore, I have produced an explanation, and couched it in Steve a/o Bucky feels to make a fic of it. Enjoy?

One of the first things Steve does when he moves to Washington, DC is buy himself a Smithsonian membership.

When he was a kid, he read with jealous curiosity about all the displays at the Arts and Industries Building, about the exotic collection at the Freer Gallery, about the national gallery that banker Mr. Mellon was building. Bucky'd thought he was nuts, with all the museums in New York, to want to see ones in DC so badly. "Sure, they're free," he'd scoffed, "but the train fare there 'n back'll more than make up the cost, Steve." Bucky just hadn't understood.

And now there are nineteen Smithsonian museums, eight of them arts-focused. Even if he hardly has time or inclination to visit, he's going to support them.

As a member, they send him notices of upcoming events, of new exhibits. That's how he finds out about the Captain America exhibit.

In the days leading up to the opening, he finds himself at the Air and Space Museum pretty regularly, staring at the closed-off corridor, at the twenty foot high banner with his face staring grimly out of it. He wonders what's in there, what things of his, of the Commandos', of Peggy's or Bucky's or even Howard's have been taken and preserved and polished up for display. He wonders what the labels say.

The day it opens, he doesn't go in, doesn't watch people line up to get in, or come running out with Captain America merchandise clutched in their hands. Instead, he runs a few dozen circles around the National Mall, until his body starts to tremble like it used to when he was a kid, running up five flights of stairs on a dare and collapsing at the top.

Once the crowds have died down and he's not as likely to be recognized and called out, he goes through the exhibit. Some of it's cute - the shifting wall chart showing him before and after the serum, for example. Some is nostalgic - how they managed to get Dum Dum's bowler, Steve has no idea, since he'd once drunkenly declared he'd be buried with it on. He smiles at the uniforms for a while, remembering moments like that, that he'd almost forgotten. 

Some things... Peggy's interview. Bucky. Those aren't so easy to walk past.

But he does. He makes himself walk past them, when he isn't busy with SHIELD and starts to spend too much time in his own head.

He reads paragraphs meant to sum up a lifetime and wonders if it's appropriate to offer corrections.

He stares at the uniform he died in, feels the new one itching even though he's not wearing it now, and knows it's inappropriate to ask for the old one back.

* * *

He leaves a note folded on top of his old USO shield, apologizing for taking his uniform. No official statement is made about the theft, but the display dummy is removed between one day and the next, the others rearranged to make the gap less obvious.

A new label covers the one that used to give details about his uniform's makeup. It reads: _Our apologies to visitors hoping to see items belonging to other members of the Howling Commandos. They have been returned to their original owners for the time being, with the hopes of being put back on display once they are no longer needed._

Steve reads that and laughs, thinking about all the blood and burns and bullets that uniform saw in the single day he put it back on. On one hand, it's more accurate to how it normally looked; on the other hand, not really museum-quality anymore.

(When Tony Stark offers to make a new uniform, based on Steve's designs but with more modern materials, he mails the old one back. The Smithsonian actually does a pretty impressive job restoring it - and when it gets returned in the next exhibit update, they add a paragraph about its brief reclamation, along with the new displays about HYDRA.)

* * *

There's a reason they called Bucky a ghost: he's hard to track. Steve spends weeks out of the country with Sam at his side, putting eyes on the ground to go along with those in the sky. With SHIELD gone, most of those are supposed to be inoperative, but somehow Tony gets around that, is able to investigate North America in his spare time while Steve and Sam are in eastern Europe, pulling on the strings Natasha provided.

In the end, none of them find him before a more obvious lead presents itself: the Bucky Barnes uniform disappears from the Air and Space Museum.

By the time Sam and Steve are back in DC, the uniform is back on its display. _Sorry_ , reads a note taped to the front. _Just wanted to see if it still fit._ Given the split seams down the length of the left arm, it must not.

"All that time we spent digging through ancient Soviet records, and he was _here_ , learning his own damn history from a poster at a museum," Sam gripes.

"Well, it's either a museum, me, or history books," Steve points out. "And I imagine he stands out less here than at a library."

"I guess. Heard from Stark lately?" Sam likes Tony Stark; a week after Steve introduced them, he'd presented Sam with a new set of wings, ones he'd built just because he was bored.

Steve nods. He trusts Sam's judgement, but Tony isn't as easy as his father was for Steve to like. He's incredibly smart and charismatic, and Steve knows now that he's compassionate and heroic too, but he puts up a front of blithe amusement that puts Steve off.

Also, he intentionally makes jokes he thinks Steve isn't going to understand. That's just mean.

"He find out where your friend went from here?"

Tony has had a lot to say about how hard Bucky is to find. But now that they have a confirmed sighting, he knows where to look, what to look for. "North, he said."

"Then... we're headed north?"

Steve gives the uniform one last look, trying to imagine Bucky - this new, confused Bucky - putting it on, looking himself over, trying to figure out if the outfit makes the man. He swallows around a sudden lump in his throat and mutters, "Yeah. To New York."

* * *

It's a while before Steve's back in DC - but when he gets back this time, he's got Bucky with him. Natasha too - she's been a big help with his recovery process, says she has previous experience with something similar. The details are apparently available online, more or less, but Steve hasn't read them. If she wants him to know more about it, she'll tell him; she hasn't, so he'll allow her what little privacy she can get.

Bucky has questions about things he saw at the exhibit that don't fit with what he's remembered so far. Since they're in DC anyway, they go to the Air and Space Museum, but the exhibit is gone - or, as it turns out, has moved. They've finally got enough room over at the Museum of American History for what will become their newest permanent exhibit. Steve supposes he should feel flattered, but the exhibit that's replaced it at Air and Space has made feeling things a little hard.

 _The Valkyrie_ , signs declare. _Step inside HYDRA's plan to end WW2!_

Steve turns on the spot, leaves the building, and does his best not to throw up in the sculpture garden. Sam comes outside and talks him through his panic attack. Natasha watches over them, and Bucky -

Bucky stays behind, goes through the exhibit.

He comes out confused, and a little disturbed. "It's a model; the original plane's too big. And they've got a recording - an imitation. Actors. Saying the last things you said before you crashed. Doesn't sound like you." A wrinkle in his brow deepens. "You never got to dance with Agent Carter?"

Steve has to focus on his breathing. Natasha says something to Bucky, but it's in Russian; he tunes them out. "There was a war on," he eventually manages. "And she's not really up to it now."

Bucky says nothing. He watches Steve, muscle in his jaw tensing and relaxing sporadically. Steve's breathing gets easier, his pulse stops throbbing in his ears, and they go to the Museum of American History. Bucky asks questions about his biography, about Steve's, about the serum, about the map of Europe across one wall that shows the progress of the Commandos.

He doesn't ask anything about Peggy's interview, or about Schmidt, or HYDRA, for which Steve is terribly grateful and awful fond of the guy.

* * *

Later - it must be going on two years, since the emails (and letters) (and magazine attachments) reminding him to renew his Smithsonian membership are picking up again - he and Bucky go to one more museum, though this time it's Bucky who's taking him.

"Can I take off this blindfold yet?" he asks, near to laughing. At a traffic stop on the way, Bucky had turned around and held out a star-spangled strip of fabric, insisting that Steve put it on. He must look ridiculous, but what can he say? He's never been able to say no to one of Bucky's dumb ideas.

"Not yet," Bucky says fondly. _Fondly_ \- that Bucky can do anything fondly is a blessing, a godsend. But it also makes him wary. Fondness from Bucky is like glee from Natasha, or anything from Fury - it's never as simple as it seems, or as harmless. Steve follows Bucky's footsteps through a doorway and up a flight of stairs easily, as there's no other sounds to distract him.

"Where is everybody?" he wonders.

"Museum's closed. It's after hours."

Steve pauses mid-step. "Bucky, if you blindfolded me so I wouldn't stop you from breaking into a museum - "

Bucky laughs. The sound is a little awkward, rough from disuse, but that only makes Steve treasure it all the more. "Nothing like that, promise," he insists. "We're getting a preview of a new exhibit."

"Not another Captain America one," Steve groans. He knows he's an American symbol, a living piece of history, and thus an object of interest for every museum in the country, but _enough is enough_.

"I wouldn't call it that," Bucky says, a grin in his voice. He starts walking again. "Come on, they're waiting on us."

Steve sighs, but follows. It isn't long before he starts hearing new sounds: faint conversation, classical music played on string instruments, things like that. Even in the suit Bucky told him to wear, he feels underdressed. The sounds get louder, though the conversation becomes no more distinct, and then Bucky finally stops. Before Steve can ask if he can take off the blindfold _now_ , it's taken off for him.

His first sight is Bucky, grinning widely, eyes full of mischief.

His second is a banner above the doorway: _The Artist Before He Was Captain_

"Oh god, no," he groans.

"Hey, I _did_ say it wasn't a Captain America exhibit," Bucky says, leading him inside.

"I think this might actually be worse," Steve says, looking around. So many old sketches, photos of WPA pieces he worked on, charcoal drawings he'd thought he'd lost - and a few he definitely knows he gave away. And people in fancy dress looking at all of them, talking about them, talking about _him_. Steve's ears are burning, even before he notices who else is here.

"There's the man of the hour," Natasha says with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. Her dress clings and slinks and fits right in with this crowd; behind her, Clint and Thor look uncomfortable but grin when they catch his eye; Tony and Ms. Potts are standing in front of a set of SSR-related pieces, discussing them intently; Sam and Sharon are squinting at - oh, Jesus, Mary, and - is that the performing monkey drawing? Steve wants to bury his head in his hands. Or in a pile of sand, the better to hide from all this.

Instead, he turns on Bucky. "You knew about this." Bucky smirks; _obviously_ , it says. "Did you set this up?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, it was already in progress before I could remember you used to draw." Glancing at Steve out of the corner of his eye, Bucky adds, "But I did donate some pieces that I found when the Army turned over my old stuff. And I may or may not have directed some interested parties toward private collections that may or may not contain some of your works, yeah."

He shrugs, unaffected by the anger in Steve's glare. "They were gonna find your stuff anyway, I just made it easier. And pointed them towards the good ones, none of those doodles from the back of your school books or nothing."

Bucky just doesn't understand. The things he did in the war are one thing, they shaped the course of humanity, they're undeniably important, but the things he _drew?_ "This is - "

Bucky cuts him off. "This is about _you_. Really and truly you. No serum, no war, no HYDRA, just you." He averts his eyes, bites out, "Excuse me if I think that's something worth putting in a museum."

The anger drains out of Steve, though the embarrassment seems to have taken up permanent residence. "Aw, Buck." Bucky looks up, hopeful, and Steve cuffs him across the back of his head. "You coulda warned me."

Bucky grins. "More fun this way." Before Steve can argue otherwise, Bucky's got a hand around his elbow and is tugging him along, saying, "C'mon, you should hear the pretentious crap people are tryin' to say about the things you used to draw."

Smiling, surrounded by all the objects and people of his affection, Steve finds he doesn't mind permanent embarrassment so much.


End file.
